This invention relates to animal traps and particularly to stakes for setting rotating-frame animal traps in trails.
Commonly, when a trap is set, it is connected by a chain to a stake that is driven in the ground. Traps that have coil springs can be staked by inserting the stake through the coils or the loop of the spring. To catch animals such as beavers and muskrats that habitate the banks of streams, other staking means must be used to set traps above the edge of the streams in the trails to the animal's dens.
Favorite traps for catching animals are rotating-frame traps having two opposite pivots about which the frames rotate to function as jaws for catching animals. These traps have, at either one or both of their pivots, rings about their frames and coil springs for urging the rings apart. Typical traps of this type are the Conibear traps shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,010,245 issued to F. E. Conibear on Nov. 28, 1961. To set the Conibear traps in trails over the edges of streams by use of usual stakes, trappers may have to wade into streams, and may have to improvise means for holding the traps on one or two stakes at desired heights.